Correct me if I'm wrong but apart from Alaska and Hawaii, can't US citizens simply DRIVE or even take a train to other states without any sort of physical search? If 7-OHM is the goldmine I think it is, making it in one state and selling it in another (where it's more valuable) seems a likely outcome. I found this:
I recall when mitragynine picrate first became an item of commerce in the 90s and now I see the loophole. Picric acid is toxic so if importation is detected, any reasonable defence council would rightly point out that mitragynine picrate is toxic and so cannot be consumed therefore cannot be considered as a drug. I mean, I personally wouldn't RELY on such a defence, but it IS a loophole.
I'm also somewhat aware that 'cooks' in the US have discovered a new way to oxidize mitragynine to 7-OHM without the need for toxic heavy metals or perilously explosive hypervalent iodine compounds. It appears someone has noted that simple Oxone™ (a swimming-pool cleanser in which KH2SO5, a peroxyacid salt is the active) will perform the delicate single-electron transfer oxidation to 7-OHM. From the little I've read, yield is around 55-65% and assuming unreacted mitragynine is the only alkaloid impurity left after the reaction, well, it isn't toxic and is active so can simply be left in the final product.
On one hand, this could be viewed through the MAGA lens as 'buying American made' but I can't help noting that people who use 7-OHM have talked about how dreadful the AWS is.
I would be quite surprised if someone isn't already trying to find a way to telescope the synthesis of MGM-15. Researchers generally don't worry to much about yield - enough it all that a synthesis need yield. But if it works out cheaper that mitragynine and 7-OHM on a per-dose basis, someone WILL be experimenting. Grisham's law will inevitably force everyone to make the most profitable mitragynine derivative.
